


Assassin from New Orleans

by indigo_illusion



Series: A Vampire Novel and a Positive Attitude (or The Exceptional Crook & Cow Girl Wench) [6]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because Haven, Body Horror, F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), POV First Person, Revenge, Semi-brutal death, Trouble with Troubles, past adventures, past crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-08 20:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12261615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_illusion/pseuds/indigo_illusion
Summary: The tragic and brutal death of the son of a couple Duke and Nathan went to school with ties back to a terrible job in New Orleans many years ago. Can Audrey, Nathan (and the ever reluctant Duke) figure out what's going on and stop the Trouble? Set around the end of Season 1.





	1. The First Death

**Author's Note:**

> This work will be part of a series if I can get things consistent for posting. 
> 
> A friend and I have a specific AU divergence with Haven that we work through (mostly on DW) and this piece meeting up with the other half around Halloween (considering content) just seemed to be kismet as far as getting things posted here which I've been debating about for quite some time; but other AU type things I've done seem to go fairly well, so we'll see. 
> 
> The main things to note at this point is that Julia Carr (who arrives in the series during the episode 9 'As You Were' of Season 1 has a slightly different history with Duke (and a slightly different personal history) than the series shows, and because of this moves into the spare cabin on The Cape after the events of that episode. Audrey is already renting the apartment over The Gull at this point (of this story, not episode 9), and Gloria Verrano has already been re-recruited to work for the Medical Examiner's office. (Blame Lucassi being a cardboard cut out for that one :p and the shifts to Julia's back story also, no junior M.E. there.) 
> 
> Those are the main things that need to be gotten into, I think. Anything else that's different will hopefully become apparent through text and context, especially as the series is expanded upon where it weaves it's way in and out of canon.

My phone rings, persistently, waking me. I wish I could risk leaving the damn thing on silent over night but that's not a thing I can do.

“Mmfph?” I ask.

“Duke,” Audrey's voice sounds a little shaky, “We could use your help with something.”

I clear my throat in the hopes that my voice will be restored, “Something?”

“Trouble,” she continues.

“No?” I pull myself up in the bed, and start looking around for clothes, “Really? It's not a busted faucet or broken window? I can be generous and--”

“No,” something about the way her tone is continuing makes me stop the jokes.

“What's going on exactly?”

“A kid has been killed,” she explains.

“Well,” I look at the clock, “I would have been heading over to check on The Gull in,” forty-five minutes, “a little bit, anyway. You and Nathan want to meet me there, or do you want me to head to the P.D?”

“We're closer to The Gull...though eavesdroppers...”

“Your apartment is above The Gull,” I point out.

“Five minutes?” She says, hanging up.

$$$$

I nip into The Gull to steal the elixir of life.

“You're up early, Boss!” Julia jokes, with a slight eye of curiosity given she's still there cooking up breakfast for the uncles and our paths generally don't cross until an evening.

“Yeah,” I grab the mug I keep in the kitchen for emergencies and pour some of the coffee that she has on the go, “a call to arms.”

“Yikes,” she comments, stirring things on the grill, “I can add some extra for you?”

“Too early,” I point out, taking large mouthfuls of the dark liquid and willing the headache away and consciousness more forward, “Not actually awake. Just a figment of your imagination.”

“Does that mean I can get a raise?” she asks.

“Don't push it.”

“What's happened?” she asks, “So, I can warn the uncles.”

“I don't know,” I tell her, nodding towards the door with my mug, “Waiting on the Dynamic Duo,” I pour the rest of the coffee in and drink some more. Almost...no, not feeling human yet.

“Ah,” she says.

“Some horrible person took all your coffee,” I point out, “you should probably fix that.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, giving me side-eye, “Or they could.”

“They probably could,” I see Nathan's truck going by the back window, “but they have work to do.”

“Nice, Boss. Thank you.”

“No problem,” I wave behind me as I cross back into the main area of The Gull hearing her say 'whatever' or something like it as I do.

I open the side door and go out to meet the Wonder Twins wincing against the daylight. Audrey is jumping out of the truck and onto the ground as Nathan shuts everything down. He seems grimmer than normal and she's clearly shaken up. She runs over and hugs me. I manage not to drench her in very hot coffee.

“What... _exactly_ happened?” I direct at Nathan.

“Jim and Valerie...” Nathan answers, “their kid...he...”

“Wait—Jim _Warton_?”

Nathan nods.

Audrey pulls herself away from me apologizing and shakes her head, “Nathan said you guys were all in high school together.”

“As much as I ever went to high school,” I drain half of what's left in the mug of coffee.

“He was friendlier with you than me,” Nathan points out.

“That was because I had things he wanted,” I return, “I don't know that'll be the case now. Pretty sure he went into finance...that's not my sort of people.”

“You know all sorts of people...” Nathan wheedles.

“What exactly _are_ you trying to butter me up for?” I ask him, finishing the coffee.

“We've done the standard interviews and the walk through,” Audrey says, “There's evidence gathering the whole nine, but we were hoping you might be able to find out more. The sort of things they're not going to tell police officers, or well, Nathan, who...”

“...wasn't exactly the in crowd?” I inquire, “I wasn't the in crowd either...”

“But people _liked_ you.” Nathan says. That must hurt him to say, but as rattled as they both are I’m not going to pick on him for it.

“High schoolers would like Hitler if he had weed and beer so getting over the Crocker thing is not that hard for the right price,” I warn instead, but the rest of my brain is slowly turning on, and that with my high school track record has me wondering, “Wait, Valerie who? Do not say Warton.”

“She works down at _Valufoods._ ” Audrey puts in, “and seriously, you are a better people person than Nathan especially now.”

“Again with the flattery. Audrey, people are going to talk,” I wave a hand at her, “ _Valufoods_ _..._ flower department?”

Nathan nods, and then pauses, “Don't tell me.”

“Fine. Fine,” I give him a pause, “but Jim might not be the only in there.”

$$$$

An hour later armed with a box of bacon, sausage and cheese quiche with home fries, and a box of pulled pork, macaroni and cheese and garlic bread reading for toasting I pull up to their house. It's a two story in a cul-de-sac but the only one in the neighborhood where the cars are home. Only one police car remains. I recognize Stan wandering about the side of the house when I walk up to ring the bell. The door opens before I get there and Valerie is standing puffy eyed and perplexed in the doorway.

“Duke? Crocker?” two question marks, interesting.

“Last I checked,” it falls from my mouth, default response. I purse my lips and find something more appropriate and sympathetic, “I was so sorry to hear what happened. I bring food and if there's anything else I can do?”

“Come in,” she says, “and thank you.”

I set the food boxes where she points on the counter in the fancy kitchen with it's central island and marble topped counters. I can hear noise of a one-sided argument from the other room.

“Jim,” she says, “Work is being...not as understanding as I'd have thought.”

“That's ridiculous,” I say, “What sort of place wouldn't be bending over backwards to accommodate him in a situation like this?”

She looks like she wants to say something but her eyes flit to the other room where Jim's angry voice is coming from. I can't make out his words only his tone.

“Well, anyway, this is breakfast stuff,” I open the lid, and explain the contents of each box, “I had them leave the bread un-toasted. Just put it on a baking pan when you heat up the rest of the food and it should be fine. You don't need to be thinking about things like--” and I'm hugged. I had wondered if that might happen. I put my arms around her back. It's right then that Jim walks out of the back room. His fist gripped around his cell phone as though he's willing it to crush in his hand. I feel that drained look in his eyes and I imagine he has the desire to hurl it across the room and smash it. He looks skeptically over at the situation, “I brought food,” I say, waving one hand out towards him.

He nods, absently, “Thanks.”

I debate offering him a hug too, “I can't imagine,” I tell him, “...what you're...”

“He was just hanging there...” he says, staring off, sentence swallowed. Valerie peels away from me and goes to him, clutching him desperately.

“Ha-hanging?”

Valerie points to the back yard, “I...didn't see. Jim wouldn't let me go out there.”

“You don't need to remember him like that,” he whispers. The way his face...the way Audrey and Nathan looked—what happened to this poor kid? Jim's hands are still clenched around his phone and resting against the counters.

I'm about to pull myself away from the situation, not sure what words I can string together other than offering help again if they need it. Any questions I come up with sound too much like things that Audrey or Nathan would say, too investigative, too prying. I've been around them too much. Valerie is whispering into Jim's ear.

“You offered to help?” Jim says.

“I'm not sure what I could do—but yes,” I nod.

He has me follow him into his office as Valerie turns on some music and begins sorting the food and putting things away in the fridge.

“It's a couple of favors actually,” Jim looks a little awkward, “Do you still—do you,” he lowers his voice even though we're in his office and away from anyone who could possibly hear, “have access to weed?” 

I have to laugh. He’s acting worse than the kids would in high school about being nervous and getting caught, “I know a guy. How much are you looking for?”

“Not much. I just...” he shakes his head, “I need enough to get through. I think it’ll help both of us, really.”

“Alright. What's the other thing?”

“I want to know who killed my boy.” Understandable.

“Aren't the cops looking into it?” I point out, “I'm not sure what else I can do.”

“You know people who aren't cops,” he returns.

“That's true—but _why_ would that? Who have you been dealing with exactly that would murder your boy?”

He looks guilty and uncomfortable.

“If you want me to help you have to give me _something._ You work for a bank don't you?”

“Investing,” which could mean anything really. Thanks, Jim.

“Did someone lose a lot of money? I'm trying to think of who would run in _my_ types of circles.”

“They might hire people who do,” he says, bitterly.

“Troubled for hire?” I shake my head, not wanting to think of who'd be willing to hire and hurt a child. Please let them have got the kid by mistake or something, “That would be--”

“No shit,” Jim says.

Not entirely sure, right now, what rocks I can shake and I have my own shit I have to do today too, “What...exactly, did they do to the poor kid?”

Jim's phone rings. He glances at the number warily, “I have to take this.”

I nod and leave the room, closing the door. Valerie looks over at me expectantly.

I give her a slight smile, trying to make out what Jim is saying on the phone, but he's speaking too low to hear through the door, “How are you doing?” I ask Valerie instead.

She shrugs, “You know...”

“Yeah,” I nod, crossing the room, closer to her, “What sort of things has Jim been doing at work lately?” I ask her, “He wants me to look into some stuff and had to take a call before he had chance to answer.”

“We don't talk much about his work,” she says, warily.

“Stresses him out though?”

“Of course,” she chews her lip.

I lean on the counter, “Makes me glad I'm not in the corporate bullshit,” I put on the sideways grin, “but then not all of us can get by on roguish good looks and charm.”

She laughs, “Thanks. I needed that.”

“I hate to press, with all the nasty shit that happened but Jim thinks it was a Trouble—anyone on either of your sides Troubled?”

She shakes her head, “Not that I know of anyway. People don't always admit that though, do they?”

“True enough,” I look about the room, trying to see who is in the pictures on the walls in the other room without making it too obvious, “Seen anyone else from school recently?”

She hesitates again, then. I hear Jim's office door open and she looks quickly at him before answering the question. I can't look over to see his expression without making that obvious either, “Other than Nathan Wuornos? No one to speak to for more than a few minutes,” she shrugs, “They come through the store and such. Nathan’s a cop now, you know?”

“Oh, believe me. I know,” I give a slight laugh, “He's always sniffing around but he never gets anything. Pisses him the hell off,” I clap my hands together, “Anyway, I'll get out of your hair and start my digging. Come by The Gull later if you're not up for what I brought and we'll make you something on the house—if you're up to being around people, of course.”

She nods, grasping one of my hands with both of hers and then hugging me after a moment of thought. I pat her on the back and kiss her cheek.

Jim walks me to the door, “I'm sorry about that,” he says, “Work is...”

“So, I've heard,” I tell him, “It's why I try not to have bosses.”

“Would if I could,” he remarks as I open the door.

I turn back to him, “I hate to dredge up the horrible, but any information that can help point me to a target--” given I can't tell you 'oh, no I don't need details because I can just go ask the police' “--anyone threaten you? Strange old gypsy ladies you almost ran off the road?”

“Seriously?” he asks.

“Hey, I can say that.”

“I suppose you can, but aren't you, like, the _only_ surviving gypsy in the region?”

“Details.”

He shakes his head though, after musing for a moment, a moment too quickly to my exceptionally crooked senses. There's definitely something going on and it's bullshit that he would lie as desperate as he clearly is for answers, but people are stupid, “I can't think of anything,” he says, “and I can't—I can't rehash what I saw when I found him right now. I'm sorry. I just...”

“I understand that. I'm sure I can find out something,” I put that smile on, “I know guys,” which is not untrue. They just have handcuffs for their actual jobs, “Besides don't need Val overhearing anything.”

He nods, “Thank you, again.”

“Oh, and I'll send you some take out in a little bit, with the other thing. You'll just pay them.”

He nods, “Oh! Right, thanks. I owe you...what?”

“Oh, no. I get a kick-back from them for the referral. It's fine.”

He shakes my hand and I leave for my _actual_ job.


	2. Wondertwin Powers............hesitate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes great endeavors take a little bit to get going. Mostly because not everyone knows what exactly is at stake.

“And nobody has been bragging about new money?” I repeat, even though I know the answer isn't going to change. It just seems to be one of those things that happen in these situations. The answer does indeed stay the same. I thank him. He agrees to call if any new information appears and I hang up, and scroll down the contact list a few more slots, preparing to dial again. I should have time for one more call before the drop arrives. It's rare, in person, most of them now are put this here, pick that up there, or wait for a transfer, and wait for another opportunity.

The last call is equally useless, but I said I would follow the leads and I am, maybe something will fall from a tree. Maybe Jim will stop being an idiot and give me the other information.

Soon enough though the trade is made and I'm driving back to drop off the rental car and retrieve my truck so I can go back to touch base with the Wonder Twins about...I don’t even know what yet.

I don’t know if I want to know what happened to the kid. It seems like it happened right under their noses too. If you can’t protect your kid when they’re close, what are you even supposed to do if they’re ...not…

Let’s not do that.

These are the thoughts that lead to stupid decisions, like what? Driving up to….Nebraska and waiting til I start to get old?

$$$$

Nathan and Audrey are down at the bottom of end of the parking lot near The Gull when I pull back near. They don’t look too much happier than when I met them earlier, not that Nathan ever really looks happy. But. Still.

“Duke,” he musters as I cross to where they’re standing. Audrey stops checking something on her phone and gives me a pale smile.

Fuck. Okay, “I’ve talked to Jim and Valerie.”

“And?” Nathan is still an impatient one, maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.

“And not much,” I shrug, “It’s not like I went in there and they were like “Oh, good the high school weed dealer is here let’s spill our guts.” I’m not _that_ miraculous. I could charge more if I was.” Nope nothing to that either. Oh, wait there’s a change in the glare.

“Nathan,” Audrey challenges, “what did you expect?”

“I should have known it was a long shot sending _you_ in.”

I can’t not bite back at that myself, “This is why you don’t have friends and why I--”

“Better no friends than friends like you,” he retorts before I can finish pointing out the various times I don’t want to help out with their shit, or at least not without some sort of quid pro quo.

“Stop it!” Audrey demands, “Not the time.”

“It never is,” Nathan grinds out before falling silent and then apologizing. To her.

“Duke,” Audrey says, as I lean against the back of Nathan’s truck, and wait to see how long it takes him to notice I’m soiling it with my filthy presence and if he’ll actually say something.

“Yes, Audrey?” I return, brightly.

“Did you find out anything at all? I know you don’t have a lot of information to go on in the first place but anything they said might help us.”

I scratch the back of my head, “I honestly don’t know. His business seems to run weirdly. I mean, I’ve never had a _desk job_ or something like he does but they were pestering the crap out of him to do stuff despite the fact that his kid just died. I understand most companies would be throwing leave at you and waiting until you called back in before asking you for anything.”

“Yeaaah,” Audrey trails off, “Where does he work?” she turns to Nathan.

“I’d have to--” he stops for a half-second in his path to the back seat of the truck looking at me but doesn’t say anything about where I’ve set up my own position, “--check.”

I shift sideways so that I’m watching him but keep my shoulder against the vehicle as he pulls a file with a sheaf of papers in it out and opens the file folder to look.

Audrey is giving me side-eye.

“What?” I ask her.

She doesn’t answer. Nathan, however, comes up with the response which is some big money sounding firm I’ve never heard of. Not like I ever invested anything in something like that. I like to see an immediate return on things, so trade and barter, not stocks and trades.

“Doesn’t mean anything to you?” Audrey says.

“No. All he told me was that he was in ‘investing’. Which could mean anything as far as I’m concerned. Did seem shaken up by the idea that if someone had possibly lost money they might hire Troubled to come after him, which—seems a _tiny_ bit extreme; but he wouldn’t get into anything else.”

“And unusual?” Nathan remarks, “considering the company isn’t local. He telecommutes,” he adds when both Audrey and I look at him questioningly, “and a good 80% of his work calls lately have been going in and out of New Orleans. Troubles are a Haven thing.”

I start to say, “You really think nowhere else in the world has Troubles?” but my brain gets hitched on a roadblock around ‘the’ when it catches up with the fact he said ‘New Orleans’ and then slithers frantically away from that job that went to shit almost fifteen years ago.

“Duke?” Audrey asks, “Did that mean something to you?”

“Sorry. I just--” I scoff in Nathan’s direction, “as I was trying to say before your you-ness caught up to me,” I wave a hand up and down his body, “we don’t have the _monopoly_ on Troubles. They just seem to, I don’t know, wash up on the beach or something. Which is one of the reasons I was happy to stay away for so long.”

“And yet you didn’t keep gone,” Nathan interjects.

I take a breath, and then wind up treating him to an overly shocked look anyway, “I’m sorry. Who came to _who_ this morning? I would have been more than happy to stay in bed until 11.”

Nathan rolls his eyes towards Audrey at that, passing the buck, and she shakes her head, “You and I _both_ discussed that point.”

Nathan doesn’t say anything in response.

“As I was saying,” I continue, “I can’t imagine we’re not the _only_ ones in the world who are aware that _actual_ freak-ish shit happens. An enforcer of some sort who could—I don’t know—shoot electricity from their finger tips would be a big boon and confusing to _less thorough and open minded_ law enforcement. Can you imagine if a chameleon got in with organized crime?”

“I’d rather not,” Audrey says.

“Are you saying you’ve encountered Troubles on your travels?” Nathan asks.

Mrg. Was being smug at him worth it? Yes. Yes it was.

“I may have,” I relent, “I may just not have connected the dots all the way because thinking about some of the shit that happened when we were in elementary school was just--”

“Yes?” he asks, archly.

“I thought we already went _through_ Carla Rose--”

“Carla Rose?” Audrey asks as Nathan scoffs at me.

“Because that sums up everything from back--”

“Nathan—again, I was a kid. Admittedly a _shitty_ kid at times.”

Nathan is just fixing me with a stare right now.

“And that is _not_ the point. I can’t go back in time and change anything.”

Nathan gets a look for a moment, considering.

“There are _rules_ of time travel, Nathan. Even if there was some sort of time-shifting Trouble. Disrupting the time line _enough_ to fix my fucked up childhood would _definitely_ have ramifications for the rest of history.”

“You think you’re _that_ important?” Nathan remarks.

“No,” I return, “I just think it would take something historical to turn my parents into decent enough human beings enough to not raise a screwed up kid who _used_ to be a bully,” I level Nathan a pointed look, “My Dad would have to be--” a non-abusive law abiding citizen who didn’t hook up with crack whores, “a _very_ different person,” that sort of person would never have gotten with Carolina, “so would my mother. _That_ would. I definitely would not be the same. You’d miss this, come on.”

“I wouldn’t notice,” he retorts, “You _wouldn’t_ have existed.”

Audrey pinches the bridge of her nose, “But there _isn’t_ a time travel Trouble and that’s not what the point is. This is skinning kids!”

“It’s…. _WHAT_?”


	3. When it Rains it Stabs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two steps forward, two steps back. Drink an -un-healthy amount. One step forward again.

We wind up in Audrey’s apartment because we’ve been hanging around too long and suspiciously in the parking lot without even bringing up... _that_. It’s getting towards lunch rush and there’d already been people walking by here and there, but the bar owner and two cops having a heated discussion is not something they’re coming too near. Skinning kids. _Skinning_ kids. I have to keep my shit together and my head away from running through the swamp, well, sort of running given we were mostly dragging Gavin, because something had grabbed him as we started and snapped his ankle while we were trying to get away and when we got him free, my pulling and Jodi stomping on whatever it was that had him, it released taking all the skin— _all_ the skin off his lower leg when it went along with Jodi’s shoe.

“Well, one kid anyway,” Audrey amended, as we went completely non-suspiciously rushing up the stairs around The Gull, “We don’t want there to be any more. That’s why we need to sort out what Trouble is causing this.”

Damn it.

Well, it can’t have come tracking us down, right? Jodi hit it with the car, and we...drove...over it. The freakish creature which I now connect the dots was not a creature but a Troubled _Person._ I knew back then there had been Weird Shit when I was a kid, but that did not look like a person. That thing didn’t _sound_ like a person. But it’s buried under years of denial, nightmares and … alcohol and … drugs.

I’m tempted to call downstairs and have Shelley—no she’s on later, closing most of this week, well, whoever send up some of the private _private_ stash, but no one needs to overhear anything _ever;_ and I need to focus on the damned conversation, not just sit here toying my finger in patterns around the counter and avoiding the temptation to just reach over and grab the whole file folder and see what the Hell is there. Troubles run in families though, right? That one has to have had relatives because how many skin taking things could there be in New Orleans? That little voice at the back of my neck whispers, making my skin want to pull itself off of it’s own accord and go hide under the bed.

“--leans?” it was a question and in my direction but I missed it. See, paranoia making you stupid.

“You wanted to be in on this,” Nathan remarks, “the least you could do is pay attention.”

“Oh, I’m sorry that I might be a bit distracted by the idea that not only is something skinning people but it’s targeting _children_. That’s just an added sickness.”

“We don’t know for sure it’s targeted the--” Nathan just stops in the middle of his sentence and massages his temples. I gotta wonder if that actually does anything.

“What were you asking me?”

“If you have any contacts in New Orleans,” Audrey says.

Fuck.

“It’s been a while since I’ve worked down there, I gotta say,” and that is truthful. There was a healthy dose of Nope involved in that decision. Too many bad paths that might happen and too many things I was not going to repeat or fall down, “...and a lot of people kipped up or washed away about five years ago,” I put up my hand at Nathan’s objection that’s starting, “I’m not going to not try, and it gives me a little bit more info to slip to the people I’ve already poked at,” I pull out the appropriate phone and start sending some texts, along the lines of:

  * check any1 u no deals wNOLA that change things?



My phone, of course, does not immediately light back up with wealths of information. Nathan looks disgruntled the longer I spend on it. Audrey starts leafing back through the paperwork on the counter.

“Staring at me is not going to make things happen faster, Nathan. It’s not like I can send out one message to this many people. It has to be done individually.”

He grumbles.

Audrey slams her hand down in front of him, “Stop taking this out on him. It’s got nothing to do with him.”

Yeah. Someone else has just brought the nightmare in to town somehow. Even if it is most likely a relative and a hideous coincidence. Hideously disfiguring coincidence with a taste for child-flesh.

“Find something else to do. That’s what I’m trying to for,” she shakes the folder in his direction papers spilling out further across the counter top. Of course, the photos are bright and colored compared to the black lines of writing. I wonder how much sleeping aids the crime scene photographer is going to be taking. Maybe I can give him a bar tab?

Fuck.

The poor kid looks like he was possibly glued to the tree. One hand still has flesh and it’s up in the branches...holy shit—was he alive when he went up in the tree? He had to have been _screaming_. The rest of the corpse is exposed muscles. No hair. No nothing. Everything must have been pulled off from the wrist...across—I can feel something burning cold and hot in my stomach—just like a...glove.

It’s more refined than whatever went after us back then...but then it’s had time...to plan this, or it’s had practice doing it before.

Certainly sends a message.

Shit. Did I just laugh?

“Duke?” Audrey has that tone she only uses when she’s very concerned about things.

I flip the papers over onto the other side hoping there’s nothing on the back as I use it to cover the next closest set of pictures which are from when the poor kid was on the autopsy table. Oh, yes, look at that. Cause of death: massive system shock. Probably happens when _all your skin is ripped OFF._ Gavin was plenty shocked—fuck. I laughed again, didn’t I?--and that was just his foot.

I push the papers unceremoniously towards Audrey because screw trying to be brave and manly at this point, “No wonder you guys looked like dea—you did this morning,” I muster, “That is—that’s some—fucked up...how could—I don’t even want to speculate what _type_ of Trouble could do that. Is it—I can’t believe I’m going to even...” nope I can’t finish the question about how the M.E. thinks it happened because I am going to puke if my brain finishes thinking about it.

“Even _what_ , Duke?” Nathan asks, “You see why I’ve not been up to your jokes.”

“In fairness,” good distraction, thank you, “You don’t appreciate the subtleties of my humor _most_ of the time, so how is that supposed to tell me _anything?_ ”

He glowers at me.

“Hey, you deal with your shit by turning insi--” inside out is a bad way to go with this brain, that’s just as bad as skinless at this point, “shutting everything more off, and I do what I do, or I drink,” I admit, “which is healthier?”

“Do I have to answer that? Or can I just keep this expression going?” he asks, waving a hand between us.

“STOP IT!” Audrey yells, “BOTH OF YOU!” she adds, fixing both of us, in turn, with daggered looks, “Holy _shit_ , how I want to bang both of your heads together but it wouldn’t do any good!”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard her cuss before.

“Do not make a joke about Nathan, right now.” She puts a hand up in my direction.

“I was honestly not thinking about that,” I admit. I was more focused on the fact you just said ‘shit’. I still am, “You just--” I stop short of asking Nathan for confirmation because that would go back to not helping, I imagine, and also he’s staring at her like he actually _did_ get hit.

Audrey takes a deep breath and smooths herself out, “I’m sorry. I _just—_ don’t you two ever _stop_?”

I can’t answer that. It just seems to always _happen,_ “You know, what?” I offer instead, “You guys do the _cop thing_ by yourselves and I’ll see if I can track some info down. It’ll work best without you,” I wave a hand between the two of them, “Considering--”

“You don’t have to justify it,” Nathan remarks, “Just go.”

“Yes. Sir,” I give him a mock salute.

Audrey follows me to the door, all five paces of it, “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks.

“Of course,” I pause with my hand on the door frame, giving her what is hopefully an appropriate smile, and reach for a distraction that will be consuming, “You need me to send someone up with food or are you going to be trekking off,” I make a swooping motion.

“I’m pretty sure I’m capable of calling downstairs to The Gull and getting food if we need it,” she retorts.

“Ah, yes, but then you _have_ to pay,” I point out.

“Believe it or not, that is fine,” she says, “And don’t you always talk about appropriate compensation?”

“I will remember that you said this Officer Agent Parker,” I tap my temple, “and I will let you know if something scurries out from under one of the rocks I’m kicking at.”

“I hope something turns up. We’re going to look into his business stuff a bit more, see if there’s anyone local he might have ticked off, or...” she shrugs, “just something, anything would be good.”

I nod and head downstairs. I give one of the bartenders a half wave and then figure I should stop in and let them know that everything with Audrey and Nathan is fine. I don’t bother pulling anything from the private _private_ stash there given it’s nothing compared to the Reserved Items on the _Cape_ if I really need to get to…

I stand for a moment leaning on one of the rails and looking out onto the water and trying to smooth everything down that’s ruffled up in my head. My head is not cooperating with this though. It wants to crawl down an all too familiar hole. I can feel my scalp starting to tingle and my body aching. _Ay_ ching. It would be so much easier to forget all this and walk away, and there’s a good part of me that just wants to tunnel out and reminds me that I could very well and very easily track down someone who could get me the stuff I would need to do just that.

Ten minutes to fuck up every step forward I’ve made in the last dozen years.

Yeaah. I lean forward and scrub the back of my head forcefully before pushing away from the railing and going to the boat.

 

$$$$

 _Cape_ is, of course, as quiet as she usually is. Julia is off at The Herald working with her uncles. It’s just me and the old girl. I know—logically—that it’s not here after me and the chances of it being the same one…

Maybe I can check it for a Buick symbol scarred into it somewhere.

Nobody’s getting back to me yet and I don’t want to pester—too suspicious—but I also don’t want to drive aimless around town waiting to see if something flicks out of an alley like a snake and starts ripping off bits. It’s a risk though if I keep letting these things circle around.

It’s still too early to make dinner. I prep a few things but it takes no time at all, and I’m not about to try—or be able to—nap to make up for being woken up at least 3 hours too early.

Okay. Stop being ridiculous.

Julia can defend herself, but this is _so_ different. Advanced warning, just in case, that would be good. Well, I’ve been meaning to bribe, barter or flat out buy access to the security around the harbor, so let’s got on that it will hopefully kill a couple of hours. Maybe something will have turned up by then.

$$$$

With all the feeds accessible from a laptop and me thoroughly aware of how to access everything Curtis leaves with a couple of grand and two bottles of aged Drambuie. My peace of mind is well worth that. Though the gap between it and where I’m at now is still too large.

While I was waiting for Curtis to arrive I checked the storage rooms and the hold. I still every once in a while get the feeling everything will be empty in there; but it’s fine for now, and the passageway is working perfectly. I had to check the ammunition again before I came above decks to negotiate fees. Which tells me exactly how much this is getting to me. No one but me or Julia has been down there lately and the only other people who know should still be locked up. It’s only been—has it only been two weeks?

Alright, well.

The passageway through the side of the state room was used back when the poker bitches were here too and works fine, but I rearrange the books to give easier access to it should the need arise and just put the other ones into one of the empty boxes I brought with me from the hold and dump them in that. I’m going to take it and put it in my closet but I figure I’ll hold off on that in case there’s anything else that needs to go in the box, so it sits accusingly on the table, as I start going through the kitchen area to sort out the next plan of attack.

It takes a little while to track down the parts but it’s on the go soon enough. At first I was going to get a clapper type because the thing would be making noise, but then this is going to be used other times, and damned if I’m going to be clapping at some light in the morning, or the evening or all through the night. A motion sensor though—things that make noise moving are also, you know, _moving._

If I keep my door open a bit the light will come through if it turns on, and if no one has left Julia’s room when it comes on we’ll be—golden? Unfortunately.

“Did something break and I didn’t notice?” Julia’s voice startles me from soldering.

I set my tool down, carefully against the counter, “No—it’s just something I’ve been meaning to do.”

“Hm,” she says, looking at the table, “Not another ‘Sheldon’ necessary situation?”

I can’t stop the sarcastic laugh, “No—that’s done with...I just--” I look at the laptop screen, “--there’s stuff...” I finish the last bit of solder and start putting the light back together and making sure the sensor if fixed.

“What did the Wonder Twins have going on?” she asks, investigating the fridge.

“Trouble,” I say, and I can feel the _look_ even before I get hit with a grape, “Hey—look, okay, it’s someone we knew from school involved, but nothing 100% on exactly who has the Trouble and...exactly what it is.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Not sure.”

“Well, are those books,” she waves at the table, “being, I don’t know, sold or something?”

“No—they...I was gonna put them in the closet.”

“Alright,” she says, “I can do that.”

Julia disappears toward the stern box in hands. By the time she’s back I have everything finished up and am wiping up debris. I fight an impulse to just run over and hug her as tightly as I can. Don’t want to get stabbed. There’s too much unsettling right now, and my brain is wanting to cling to stable and familiar, especially with everything wanting to pull me back before the week of pain and nightmares where she was the only thing that kept me here.

But yes—focus on that, how everything is over and done with. We’re not going back to the other side again. That’s not going to help any. This waiting thing sucks, but that’s what beer is for, and maybe some Glen later depending. I would seriously take it invading the boat right no because then it would be Done With.

“So, did you make dinner already?” she asks, pointing to the sink where the dishes are still draining from earlier, “I didn’t really look in the--”

I open the fridge door wider from where I’m finding a beer and show her the meat and veggies marinading in separate ziploc in the top corner, “It was a while ago.”

“Okay,” she says, “so fajitas?”

“Could be,” I admit. I don’t remember what I was thinking of at the time.

“Boss--” she says, with a tone that’s slightly wary, “You’re starting to worry me. Should I be worried?”

I suck my teeth, “I don’t know.”

Her look hardens, “Duke--” she says, pausing before passing me rice, and going back to finding tortillas.

“I know. I’m sorry. Stuff is off,” I wave my hand in the direction of everywhere else in town, “and it’s rattling me.”

“Is this healthy paranoia or me having to sit you down and remind you of logic with regards guys and tattoos?”

I shake my head, draining the last of the beer bottle as I set up the rice.

“Your not answer is extremely comforting I gotta say.”

“Well, I would like to be being paranoid,” I counter, “but you know my feelings on self-preservation.”

She nods, “ _But…_?”

“Things are reminding me of something that happened way back--”

“Way back the last time the Troubles were here?” she asks, emptying the meat into the pan to saute, “or…?”

“More recent than the Troubles, but...something that happened out in The World.”

“Oh,” she says, turning things around in the pan.

I close up the seasoned rice, and adjust the temperature shaking the pot a few times to make sure things don’t stick and then go for plates and set the tortillas to warm. If she wants more information she doesn’t ask any more questions, and conversation instead turns to a humorous argument that her uncles got into about the length of time a potted plant had been in the offices.

“And then in the middle of all that the Hamiltons,” Julia is finishing as we sit down, “the Hamiltons they came in wanting to put an ad about some birthday party and Vince in the center of the office pointing at Dave like he’s the Wicked Witch of the West about to cast a spell--” she shakes her head, laughing.

“Wow,” I’m trying to picture it, but it’s difficult, even if it’s hilarious. I’m surprised they ever get anything done. Though I suppose the same could be true when I get roped into helping on a Trouble. Though...Nathan and I _aren’t_ related. Thank everything. Though—shit—if we were does that mean our interactions would be more on par with Wade and me? Courtesy phone call every so many months.

  * _You’re all doing okay? Good._  

    * _You’re still alive and not in jail? Alright._
    * _Good talk._



“Everything’s going to be okay,” Julia says. I’m not sure if she was stating or if it’s a question.

“I’m sure it’ll get sorted,” I manage. It covers both possibilities.

“Hopefully sooner rather than later,” she says, “because Troubles...” she doesn’t have to finish that sentence the many places that it could possibly lead are all extremely well known to both of us. On the up side this Trouble isn’t one that is just randomly hitting all sorts of every which way, but there could be other targets and people being damned stubborn.

“You guys always manage to pull things together,” she continues, “do you think there’s anything I could do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I just don’t like when things are...” she purses her lips, “...you’re _concerned_ about something and if I can sort something out especially if it’s going to come here.”

I shake my head, “There’s nothing saying that something or someone will; and anything else is just a waiting game on when some nut is going to fall from a tree or something,” I glare pointedly at the couple of phones sitting on the counter where I left them.

The phones stubbornly stay silent.

“Beer?” I ask her, getting up and taking the empty plates.

“Sure,” she nods.

I pop the top off and hand her one, and take another myself, sipping on it as I put leftovers away. Julia joins after a moment and starts the dishes despite my protests.

“We both worked on it we can both clean it up. It wasn’t a one or the other,” she says, “I will be more than happy to cook everything tomorrow so that you can wash all the dishes.”

“Okay,” I debate turning the radio on some sort of distraction to sing along to, keep the mind more occupied. I don’t want to become an annoying sap. I also don’t want to get weird and clingy, but everything going on makes me feel split between just confessing everything I feel and letting the chips fall where they will or running off in land. In the end we finish the chores in silence broken by humming snatches of tunes here and there and little bits of stories—recollections brought about by the music, and other snippets from the day.

After the dishes are done I head over to The Gull to see how things are going before closing and to have some air and distraction. There are things that I didn’t get done today which I’ve been ignoring thinking about. Payroll, scheduling, all that bullshit too. Aside from the menu—that part will be the most fun.

I suppose I should get payroll and everything sorted first.

Taco Tuesday is wrapping up. Tracy is cleaning up a spill near the door when I come in and there are only a handful of tables full, two of which are tourist families. Manny is cleaning up the main bar and nods at me.

“All’s good, Boss Man.”

“Glad to hear it,” I point to the back office to show where I’ll be going and he nods. I grab a beer from the fridge along the way. Payroll sucks, but I’ve been in the stick. I know how important it is to get everyone paid. Schedule is also annoying at times, but I’m at least getting where everyone has a fairly set one. It’s just the juggle of new people who are not known with reliability. There are still no messages on my phones. I scroll through the history checking time stamps while the payroll is sending and the schedule is printing for the wall. There are a couple of people I can risk poking again but everything else I have to let sit. I tried. It’s not my fault if no one knows anything or if they don’t want to tell me.

I go and make sure ‘last call’ is going okay before I hang up one of the schedules in the kitchen, who have been on the ball tonight and are pretty much cleaned up, aside from one last load of dishes that is being filled as I tack up the piece of paper and check the returns board. Another copy goes by the time clock and the last one goes behind the bar where people are wrapping things up. One of the tourist families is gone and the other is arguing over who is going to pay the bill, and then aside from Freddy who will likely have to be pushed out at the end of night into a cab pretty much everyone else is gone that I can see. Shelley and one of the junior wait staff are coming in from the back deck, Shelley carrying a zipper bag which has to be the till contents from out there.

“Oh, hey Boss Man,” she remarks, “sorting out the schedule.”

“Yeah, kinda figured you guys might want to get paid this week and all too,” I start upending chairs onto the tops of clean tables.

“Your generosity knows no bounds,” she jokes, getting side-eye from the new girl. She’s a Keegan so I have to wonder how long she’ll last slumming it at a real job.

I take the money from Shelley and go to check with Manny for the other till, and do a quick count of the combined amounts and set up a deposit to be dropped off in the morning, and leave it in the safe before I go and start looking at the walk-ins to see what specials should go on the menu for tomorrow, given the only set one we really have at the moment is Taco Tuesday, and of course the two for ones and the happy hour (from 5-8).

With a rough plan sketched out and tacked up on the board where the openers will see it in the morning. I may as well start some prep gives me something to do and saves me coming back at 2 or 3 in the morning. I go through the walk-ins again double checking that everything has been dated and throwing out the few things that aren’t which don’t look fresh, and dating one that I know based on yesterday had to be done today and will be used up fairly quickly: chopped peppers and onions are nothing if not popular.

I turn on the radio in the kitchen area, and begin my work.

Shelley comes in to check on me after a good half hour, “We’re all set out here. I take it you’re good if we lock you in,” she sings a few bars of the tune playing.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Just setting some stuff up for the morning.”

She nods and adds with a grin, “I told them it wasn’t a Kitchen Helper Elf.”

“Never been an elf before.”

“I hate to tell you Boss but you’re a bit tall to be one now.”

“Depends on the elf.”

She taps her hand on the door frame, “I don’t even...want to know,” she says, “but anyway, everyone else is out. I’ll lock up. See you tomorrow?”

“Probably.”

“Alright then,” she waves as she disappears again. I hear the doors lock and the turn the music up louder before washing my hands and going back to vegetable chopping. Once there’s a whole shelf of prepped veggies sealed up in different trays. I carve some fillets of chicken and steak and put them in marinades. By this point I’m yawning and by the clock I’ve been here a good four hours, so I clean everything up and double check all the locks before heading back to the _Cape_.

 

 

 


	4. Here Comes the Rain Again...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paranoia, paranoia is something coming to get me? Also Summons.

The _Cape_ is dark when I get back. Though after I lock up the outside door and stumble into the kitchen the motion light flips on, so hey, that works, and there’s nothing or no one around, which pleases me given not having to explain anything and also nothing has invaded. I make a fajita to snack on and take it with me into my room figuring I’ll go to sleep once I’ve eaten and chilled out for a bit considering I was yawning in the damn kitchen while tossing marinade; but I walked the way back, apparently I’m awake now.

I grab one of the books from the top of the box and open the whiskey I keep in the room now and figure one or the other will put me to sleep eventually.

There’s a hissing rattle from somewhere in the kitchen, but the light hasn’t come back on. Still—it’s enough to make me pause while refilling my drink, and move across the bed closer to the door and listen. Maybe it’s just something settling. But no—that’s the noise of something moving around. I can hear the deck creak under foot falls but they’re too heavy to be Julia’s. My chest feels tight, like someone’s pulling at my insides as I grab the gun from the top drawer of the dresser and carefully check and cock it.

Julia’s door is closed as I make my way slowly up the short corridor to the edge of the state room. I can hear movement but the light isn’t activating and I can’t make out any shifts of shadows; just the slowly, sinking feeling of doom. I still have the book in my hand so I throw it across the other side of the room to see if I can attract the attention of whoever it is.

Skittering scrape is the response. Loud. Fast. Coming from all around. I can’t focus on where it is, and then it collides with me slamming me back into the wall and then I’m pinned. Not just stuck for a moment, but pinned. It’s like I’m covered in tar. My skin is burning, all the hairs being pulled at once everything in opposite angles as it tears. I’m pulling against the tar holding me in place trying to get enough leverage to use the gun, to get free; but then it’s around my head, slowly the air is being sucked away I can’t breathe. I can’t get out.

I can’t.

I can feel everything pulling apart from everywhere else. I’m being torn apart and I can’t keep—I can’t breathe. I can’t--.

There’s everything wrapped around me and it doesn’t want to let me go.

Then my hand hits the wall. I’m not even tangled in my sheets. Just having thrown the book across the room I can see it on the pile of laundry at the bottom of the bed, and my glass is on the floor. Glad I noticed that before I put my foot down on it.

I climb out of bed and find the gun, for real, this time, and bring the whiskey and glass along as well. I go cautiously out of the room, listening and waiting, until I get into the state room. I set the bottle and glass down and then move into the kitchen the light comes on.

Okay, so it is working and everything is fine. Doors are still locked. Everything is in it’s place; but my heart is still beating so loudly it might as well be in my skull, and while my chest is less tight I still don’t feel good. Let’s just go with “Fuck sleep”. I’ll catch up when the Trouble is done.

$$$$

I don’t hear Julia come out of her room until she’s actually in the kitchen, so I must have dozed off again at some point during the reading in the corner of the couch hours, but when she comes out of the bathroom I hear that.

“Did you sleep _at all_?” she asks.

I shrug and hand-wave ‘iffy’ at her because no point in denying it. I’m rarely up this early unless I have a completely legitimate errand to run and obviously that’s not a thing this morning.

She looks as though she’s about to ask something else but then she just gives a slight smile, “Well, I usually work out first thing in the morning so I’ll be on the deck. Maybe you should try and sleep?”

“At this point why bother?” I tell her, “I’ll just make coffee for you for once.”

“Just remember not to drink it all,” she says as she walks past. The work out comment makes some sense to the spandex and lycra outfit that’s hugging her ass so wonderfully on the way out of the door.

Right. I drain the remains of the whiskey glass. Coffee it is.

Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

Coffee on the go and I take a quick shower and get dressed. Then I turn some of the leftover fajita mix into steak omelets which are about halfway cooked when Julia scurries back in and into her cabin with a comment I only half catch about smells and cheating, and then she’s in the shower.

Do not think about Julia in the shower.

Well, that’s a better do not think to think about anyway.

Over sight. No bread. It helps to have bread to make toast. Could have tortillas but that’s a bit repetitive. Then we have flour and butter and baking powder and milk so it’s not too hard a task to mix up that up with a little bit of salt and half dozen biscuits are baking while I turn down the heat on the omelets to make sure they stay warm but don’t burn.

Julia comes out of the back, wearing dressy jeans and a vaguely flowery shirt, toweling at her hair. I present her with a mug of coffee and she inhales it deeply after discarding the towel through her bedroom door, “Ah, good,” she says, “I don’t have to stab you. Though I might have a good excuse. Are you sure you’re not a pod person?”

“That’s not the type of question I can answer without implicating myself as a pod person.”

“Very true,” she says, “but you did make good coffee so that’s a...good start in your favor.”

“Glad to hear you say that,” I tell her, taking the biscuits out of the oven, “because there’s breakfast as well, and I would like to think it was all my design.”

She goes and gets plates and serves the omelets from the pan on to them and then I put the pan into the sink splashing in soap and running hot water on the top briefly. She’s added a biscuit each to the plates and brought them to the table in the mean time so I follow with butter, knives and forks and my own mug of coffee.

“No,” she says, shaking her head sorrowfully as she swallows a bite of food, “it’s no good. I’m sorry, Boss, I’m going to have to kill you. It’ll be tragic but I’m sure _Cape_ will help me through it.”

“I’m sure she would, the traitor, but,” I add pointing at her with the knife I’m using to butter the biscuit of my own, “I am fairly sure you’re just trying to alibi yourself a way into stealing my boat.”

She feigns shock at the accusation, “How dare you?”

“I always dare,” I point out, “It is a thing I am known for.”

Her response to that is cut off by my phone ringing. The bat signal phone that the Wonder Twins have the number on, not the phone that I was using to tug on leads.

“You could still be asleep,” Julia offers, apparently reading my expression all to well and offering her hand out to answer the phone.

“No. It’s fine. Best find out what it is,” I say, pressing the answer button, and hoping that I don’t regret it.

  



	5. Then There Were Two...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second body makes some people more forthcoming with information. Hopefully not too little too late.

Is it too late to pretend I was still asleep, after all? Logic points out to me that sadly, yes, yes it is, but I’m not known for making the greatest of decisions on low sleep. Going to a birthday party on Death Island, for example. Though...wench room mate came out of that, so not all bad. Just mostly, terribly, horribly, dreadfully bad.

“Boss?” Julia asks, “Duke?”

I drain the last of the coffee from the mug, should have put whiskey in it. Should have, “No, no, it’s fine,” I tell Audrey, “I actually wasn’t asleep, just finishing up breakfast.”

“Okay,” she says, sounding unconvinced but whatever, “If...did anyone get back to you?”

“Not so far, but this...” second kid, fuck me, “...adds a--” what? Wrinkle? Sharp pains of dread?

“Yeah,” she says, apparently filling in her own blank, “Look, we’re still here at the scene. Everything’s getting recorded and all.”

I hear an old familiar voice on the other side of things, “Who are you talking to exactly?” Gloria must be examining the body. I hear Nathan fill her in when Audrey takes too long saying anything, “Oh, good,” the old lady continues, “tell him to bring me a number seven special if you’re dragging him into this.”

“A what?” Audrey asks.

“Or even if you’re not dragging him into this.”

“I didn’t know The Gull had deals like that,” Audrey says, “And they’re not even--”

Gloria just laughs. Audrey stops her line of thinking, because obviously it doesn’t matter if The Gull is open this early or not I’m the owner I can bring whatever it is with me, but it’s something that was in play long before The Gull.

“Did you hear that?” Audrey asks me.

“I couldn’t not,” I say, “but I guess that means I’m meeting you down there,” because who am I to deny a long standing customer a delivery of herbal relief, and Jack Daniels. I’m already texting the Dry Dock about the weed.

“I guess,” Audrey sighs, “I’m sorry.”

“Uh-huh. Just text me the address.”

$$$$

 

I swing by The Gull to grab the Jack and then meet one of Dan’s guys on the way to get the weed. After I’m back on the road I realize I should have ordered double, kept some for myself. That would be good relaxation. Hopefully I’ll have time to fix that later.

It only takes about another ten minutes to get up to the place in question. A wood frame board covered house with a two car garage and then trees in the back. There’s also Nathan’s truck, three squad cars and the coroner’s van. No one is around directly up front or by the coroner’s van so I leave the stuff in my truck until I can track down Gloria. She won’t be hard to spot though. She’s a fairly short woman, with bright red curly hair and impossibly huge balls.

There’s a path round the side of the house which leads me to the back yard where everything is happening. Gloria is on the right by a tree which has suspicious dark staining on a good portion of the trunk. There’s someone whose face is obscured by a large camera kneeling near by taking pictures and when I foolishly follow that line of sight I can see part of the body. Impossibly tiny and covered in ridged lines. Exposed muscles. Gloria is pointing out, to the photographer, the hand that’s still got all it’s skin and picking something out of the fingers and putting it into a bag.

Nathan is with one of the other cops examining part of the fence and pointing at some thing towards the house. Audrey is by the door to the screen porch talking with a couple. They look haggered. I’m not sure who they are though. I thought maybe they would look familiar given the name wasn’t, but no. The wife accepts Audrey’s comforting arm pat before going into the porch and sitting down, the husband goes into the house itself.

Audrey meets me.

“It’s not good?” I ask her.

She shakes her head, “Kid was up the tree,” she points over Gloria’s head, “and...well...”

“Same as the other?”

Gloria interrupts, looking grim at first but then, “Hey, kiddo,” she pats my arm, “I wasn’t joking about that special, you know.”

“When do you ever when it comes to these things,” I tell her, “It’s in my truck. Didn’t want to risk dropping anything.”

“Good lad,” she whistles and two of the boys in blue cover the small body and carefully take it to the van a few feet away, “We need to sort this one, pronto.”

“We’re going to,” Audrey says, firmly.

I excuse myself to walk with Gloria so that I can give her her goods. She gives me a hug in thanks and slips some bills into my pocket.

“What was I on that I agreed to come back and do this?” she mutters, taking the canvas bag of goodies and putting it under the front seat of the van.

“Whatever it was get me a line,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes at me.

“I’m serious. Why did I agree to help out on this again?”

“Oh, hush, you--” she retorts, “I already gave you a tip for rush delivery,” she purses her lips then as she sits into the driver’s seat, “This is nasty and malicious,” she explains, “I’m used to deaths from Troubles, but they’re usually accidents, throws of passionate emotion that cause some random destruction. It sucks, but it’s not much different from a tragic death caused by mechanical failure, but this—this is deliberate and vile. They _know_ what they’re doing,” she turns on the van and buckles in, shaking her head, “by this time next year I should be a Grandma. This shit better be done with.”

There’s not a lot I can stay to that other than agreeing.

Nathan has joined Audrey when I walk back into the yard itself. He mutters my name in my direction by way of greeting.

“Morning to you too, Nathan,” I reply.

Nathan goes into an explanation of what’s come up. It looks as though the culprit came over the fence from the street behind. There’s some spots on the back deck and window where rocks and woodeen paint has been abraded almost like sandpaper. They apparently saw some of this at the other place. Whoever killed the child climbed through the bedroom window and out. Then again, they were stripped of clothes and almost all skin, when they were hung up—still alive—to die.

I should not have eaten breakfast. I might well throw up.

The wife was in school with us: Alice. She was the nerd side of school though. Even did a/v club with Nathan. He’s an Outsider moved back to town with her after they got married. They used to live in Louisiana: Baton Rouge.

Well, then.

“Doesn’t work for the same company as Jim, but they’re both in the same sector,” Audrey glances down at her notes, “waiting for confirmation on company histories given maybe there was some overlap at some point or they’re working on the same deal something where this is some brutal form of leverage.”

“I guess I can check with Jim and see if he knows anyone at...what is this company?”

“Peters-Shobe,” Audrey fills in, “and the other one...”

“No, I remember that it was the very original New Orleans Financial Group.”

“Right,” Audrey says, nodding a couple of times.

“Alright, well, you do that,” Nathan says, “We’ll look for other connections and see if we can sort out where the Troubled Person is.”

“Good luck,” I tell them, and go back to the Beast.

I send a message to Jim, and then check in via phone with The Gull just to make sure everything is going alright. I answer a couple of questions and then having received an answer from the Warton house I drive back over there.

Jim told me to find him in the yard. He is around the back of the house with a tree trimming crew getting estimates about _that_ tree. Not that I blame him. I wouldn’t want to be staring at something like that any time I looked into the yard—not that I have a yard, but anyway.

“Any news then?” he asks.

“Yes, and no,” I admit, “Not exactly great news but hopefully there can be help. Does your company deal with Peters-Shobe at all?”

The momentary flicker of emotion across his face gives me the answer more truthfully than his, “Maybe?”

“For someone who wants answers about what happened to your boy you’re being unhelpfully obtuse.”

He glances around like the entire reason for his remark is the work crew. I just give him a look. Then I follow him through the back door of his house and into the kitchen. Where he wraps his fists on the nearest counter for a moment a frustrated non-rhythm.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says after a moment.

“Do what?”

“Untangle things.”

I scan around laying what I see now with what I remember seeing yesterday and it’s two cabinets before I find the liquor stash. The glasses are a lot simpler to find. I pour him one and gift myself the finders fee. He doesn’t complain. Especially when I label it lubricant handing it over and taking a drink of my own glass. It’s not the greatest bourbon, but it’ll serve.

“Right...” he mutters, taking a mouthful. Maybe he feels the same way.

“Drink more if it’ll help,” I tell him, “I’m not going to judge your speed.” I have no right, “So,” I tell him after taking a couple of mouthfuls to his draining the glass and pouring another, “Peters-Shobe.”

“Yeah, they’re dealing with my company. There’s a sort of...” he pulls a face, “...negotiation, I guess, but I wouldn’t have thought shit like this would happen. Things get heated in talks sometimes but--” he drains the glass and then throws himself into a chair at the kitchen table, “--never like this.”

“Anyone else involved in this deal?” I ask him, “or any other deals you’re working on or know the other company is?”

“How would I know about _them_?”

“Well, their rep is local too. I thought maybe you talked.”

“He _is_?” he looks, surprised, genuinely, “I only Skyped with him sooo I figured he was actually back in Baton Rouge.”

“No,” I shake my head, “Not as such.”

“Did...” he trails off making a grimace sound, “I mean you said—did something happen?”

“Yes,” I tell him, “his daughter, same as your boy.”

“Fuck.”

“Indeed. So, I kinda want to see if there’s anyone else and...what might have been going on so--” and that look tells me more than any words.

He sighs, “May have been trading tips back and forth with Noah.”

“Noah?”

Jim nods, “Yeah, we’d been talking about separating off, working by ourselves, even if we could get things forming our own...thing. No middle men.”

“Maybe taking clients too?” That’d be something people get pissed about especially if they’re not exactly a legal and above board financial operation.

“Clients go where they find the best deal, you know that, I’m sure,” he says, defensive.

“Noah in New Orleans somewhere?”

“No!” he says as though ‘how dare I?’ “No, Noah Hartleypool, man. He lives over the way,” vague hand motion is vague.

Don’t think I’ve done any recent deals with any Hartleypool but it’s the type of name you remember going through school because it reminds with school, tool, drool. Re-running that isn’t going to help shit though. Will have to come up with something different.

Later.

After I leave Jim I head back towards town and The Gull. Have to touch base with the Dynamic Duo, after all, about the new information and see if they got anything themselves and please no one else skinned. Please.

Oh, and there’s a text to meet at the Morgue. Awesome. Maybe I can bum a joint from the woman I just sold weed too.

So, this is how I find myself with Gloria, Nathan and Audrey discussing how the kids’ skin wasn’t exactly ripped from their bodies, it was flayed off, abraded even, like so much sandpaper. And how there’s traces of saliva on both bodies and on samples the cops pulled from the damaged walls and fences and so on.

“So—this is a _tongue_ thing?” Audrey asks, sounding as sickened as I feel, “How does that--?”

“Hey--” Gloria says, “I don’t know how the Trouble works. I can just tell you what Science says it’s doing,” she takes a good swig of coffee which I would bet is a good 1/3 the Jack I brought her earlier.

“But skin and tongue...” Audrey repeats.

“Ours is not to reason why,” Gloria mutters over the top of her mug, “Ours is but to deal with the shit.”

I stop myself short of agreeing with that mostly because of the constantly getting roped into this shit which I just—if it’s going to keep being like this—I don’t know if—let’s just stop that. Right now. Seriously, though, why did I agree to come in here? Yes, the bodies aren’t on display, thankfully, but I can feel them inside the metal drawers, and I can hear an ear piercing keening vibrating around the room, which I have to be imagining. Nathan’s numb not deaf.

I excuse myself outside. They can finish up whatever without me, but it’s like everyone was just waiting for the first person to chicken out because I haven’t even had time to boot up the second phone before I’ve got company again.

“I thought you had a stronger stomach than that,” Nathan remarks.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I retort, “I did not sign up for _that_. Show me a tattooed man any day--”

Audrey’s expression vaguely mirrors one I’ve seen on Julia for a moment before she pinches her nose, “Alright, so you didn’t get chance to fill us in on whatever it was before that,” she waves a hand back towards the morgue.

“Ah, right,” I find a nearby bench and flop down, “I don’t figure it’s too, too privacy needing. Jim decided to be a bit more informative given changes in circumstance. Apparently he was dealing with Peters Shobe, thought that their rep was back in Baton Rouge though, only talked on Skype or whatever, apparently never ran into him about town _but_ he’s also been back channeling or trading tips or--” I wave a hand, “Not entirely sure which—this is so not my side of the fence—but anyway, the tip trading is with _Noah Hartleypool_.”

“Hartleypool...” it’s apparently familiar to Nathan.

“Yeah, they were even talking about forming up their own company and trying to entice clients to follow them.”

“That’s not possibly dangerous or anything,” Audrey mutters.

“Not at all,” I tell them, “Especially given he implied that things weren’t entirely above board with some of their work.”

“I guess we’ll? Talk to Hartleypool?” Audrey remarks in Nathan’s direction.

Good. I don’t have to invoke The Whining or something to get out of doing anything else today. Hopefully it’s him...who am I kidding he’s local. He probably has some make water boil Trouble or something; and it’s more likely one of the other places has hired the...Thing...and he’s a target too.

“Sounds good,” Nathan has said, “You’ll let us know if any other...ships...come in?” he asks me.

“Sure. Fine. Whatever,” I wave a hand at them as they walk off, before hauling myself up and going back to the truck to go the rest of the way back. Maybe I’ll just hide out on the _Cape_ again for the rest of the day. Except, it's funny when you start turning over rocks what falls out because I’ve not even got the truck in gear when my phone starts chiming with the ring tone that indicates someone from The Gull is calling. There’s a split second where I sincerely wish that it’s actually that something is on fire, but it’s Shelley sounding slightly concerned.

“Heeeey, Boss-Man,” she says, “So, there’s a guy here looking for Duke Crocker,” there’s a pause, “Seems agitated, but agitated-nervous not agitated-bone-breaking.”

“And they’re looking for Duke Crocker, why?”

She sighs, “He won’t go into specifics. ‘History’ ‘Work’,” I can hear the air quotes and the head-shaking, “But, I mean, I just work here.”

“Describe him for me?”

“About a head and a half shorter than you, limp, African American.”

Mother fucker.

Gavin. It has to be.

“Alright. Thanks,” I tell her, “I guess I’ll be seeing you in a few minutes then.”

 


	6. Blast from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old cohorts wanting to settle old grudges.

“Is it true?” Gavin grabs me when I come into The Gull before Shelley can even finish saying he's the guy who was looking for me. So, that answers that question. I tell her it was fine. She nods and disappears to give us space.

“Not here,” I tell him, “You look hella suspicious,” So as much as I might want to go to the bar right now I take him out onto the deck where there aren't many people. We have good weather given it's summer but it's between lunch and dinner rushes, “Breathe, okay?”

“I don't think I can,” he answers.

“Evidence suggests otherwise,” I point out.

It gets the glare I was looking for but doesn't change the fact of what's going on. I haven't seen him in forever, does he have kids? Would it go after them even if he isn't involved in all this mess just because we were there.

“What _exactly_ have you heard?” I ask him.

“That _it_ is _here_ ,” he waves his hand towards town, “doing—doing _you_ know...” one hand goes towards his leg. Shelley had mentioned the limp and there’s definitely something there, “Are we safe? Jody--” he stops as though he was about to say something he shouldn't.

“Jody's here?”

“Well, not _here_ here,” he says, “but before you get all,” he waves his hands, “Yes we hooked up. We're together.”

I put up my hands, “Okay, okay, more power to you. I just—is it going to be a 'thing' if I talk to you _both_?”

He gives me a look, “I don't know, _is_ it?”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” I push him around, grabbing hold of his jacket, and we go back towards the parking lot I just came from, “Get your ass to my truck.”

  


$$$$$

We pull up to a single story white and gray house and I park behind a green car. There's a wall one side of the driveway facing the road and a hedge the other and I see a small kid's bike and a make shift sand pit in the far corner near the house. I swallow hard signs are pointing to a young kid being about. Shit. For a moment I see her again, skinless hand dangling out from under a protective sheet, and the knowledge that Jim's kid was in the same state, completely without skin, and not being able to stop that rising panic.

“What's wrong?” Gavin asks.

“We'll get into it,” I tell him, getting out and following him into the house as he glances back at me uncertainly before opening the door.

“I'm back!” he calls, “and I have company,” is added hastily.

“Oh, well so do we,” Jody calls back from a room to the right.

Gavin opens the door to the kitchen, “Your sister's always here,” he says in joking tones that are slightly forced.

“No,” she says, “Charlotte's boyfriend is with her in the other room,” I can just make out a pointing hand from the angle I'm stood at, “did you...?” it trails off.

He steps to the side and I move forward giving a small wave.

She stands up and the sister looks between the lot of us and then makes an excuse to slip away to another room to check on something.

“Well,” Jody says, carefully, “He lives. I thought for sure someone would have shot you by now.”

“It doesn't seem to take,” I answer.

“So, people have been trying?” Gavin asks, warily.

“Not recently, but that's not the point is it?” I say as I'm ushered to sit at the kitchen table and offered coffee. Gavin is shaking his head in what seems to be disbelief that we're all together again after just over fifteen years. The awkward silence while a proper start to conversation tries to start is broken by Jody's sister coming in with a young boy, five at the most, in tow. He's covered in brown and gray dirt from somewhere and is struggling against being brought forward.

“No,” she's saying, “No. You _come_ in here and own up to your shi—crime,” she gives a sheepish smile, “didn't do it though. Didn't say it.”

Jody applauds her, “What's going on?”

“Just a--” she puts up a finger and turns to the squirming child, “tell Aunt Jody what you did.”

Aunt Jody reverbs hopefully around my head. There's no telling if they're actually involved in anything anyway. They've settled down they have kids—a kid who is old enough to have a boyfriend which means she was probably born within a couple of years of us parting ways. Not mathing stuff or asking about that right now. Maybe all that combined would keep them safe.

“--clean it up,” Jody is saying, “and _then_ bathe.”

There’s complaining muttering from the child I don’t catch.

“Because you're going to get more dirty cleaning it up!” the sister says, really need to get her name, “Charlotte!” she calls towards the door, “Watch Devin and make sure he cleans up the mess!” There's a shout of complaint in retort.

“Because _I_ said so!” Jody replies, “Kids,” she says with an apologetic look turning to me.

“Yeah,” I nod, even though the Troubles would have to be over _and_ I’d have to track mine down before I could properly understand, and we have more pressing matters.

“You've not settled down?” Jody asks.

“Come on now,” I push at her, “Even if that was me who would put up with me?”

Silence strains again for a moment.

“Should I go?” her sister asks, “Whatever you guys brought him here for, _whoever_ he is,” she looks pointedly at them, “is it something I shouldn't be here for? Is it to do with your _sordid_ past?” she wheedles.

Jody shoots her a dark look, but she can't say anything because it's true, but then she looks at me, “If there's a chance she might be involved, I mean, I've heard conflicting things, but I mean, it's pretty obvious two young kids died, and she has a young kid, and then that... _thing_...we'd convinced ourselves it was a nightmare, a hallucination. There were a lot of other things going on.”

“Oh, my God!” her sister says, “Is this the Duke that you guys had that _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ thing going on with?”

I give both Jody and Gavin a questioning look, because what the hell did you tell her?

“That's...” Gavin starts.

“Okay, so...” Jody says.

“First,” I cut in, “Yes, I'm Duke. I'm not sure _what_ they told you but what's _your_ name?”

“Keesha,” she says, “and thank you,” she gives a pointed look at her sister.

“Don't,” Jody says with warning eyes on me.

“What?” I ask.

There's a 'you know,' look which I'm assuming means hit on her considering history and things with Jody and I way back which has to be why Gavin was antsy in the first place. I put up my hands in the expected mask of innocence gesture. They don't know about Helena and my lack of history since then and I'm _not_ getting into _any_ of that.

“I asked her _name_.”

“It's taken _less_.”

“Anyway,” I say, “You've mentioned our debacle in New Orleans it sounds like?”

“Things came up,” Jody says, picking at the edge of the table.

“But there were nightmares...her Trouble...” Gavin fills in.

“Trouble?” shit. Troubles can't be passed by—what the hell are you thinking even? He was the one that actually got attacked and damaged, and they don't work like _that_. Stop being a paranoid shit head. It's not like a werewolf and those aren't...don't jinx yourself.

“Things...there's light and it,” she motions towards her chest, moving her hands in and out, “and somethings caught fire, but it's under control now, but we came back here, to the outskirts to, because, I mean, especially with a young kid we didn't want, and if she has it too...”

“Of course now,” Gavin says, with an eye roll I interpret as ‘fucking Troubles’.

“I've been keeping it under control,” Jody points out, “and Charlotte's a ways into puberty and nothing's happened.”

“Anyway...” Gavin says, “I mean, we _did_ hit a…whatever that was with a car...and it's just...whether or not they were going around doing... _things_... ”

He's not wrong. I look at the coffee cup for a while. There's vague memories of shivering, feverish on the _Cape_ the summer after all that happened. That 'really bad stomach flu' and seeing the things and I wanted to think they were just detox hallucinations _so_ badly, because something doing _that_ it has to be the drugs; but now...the _bodies_. 

“Even with their Trouble they're still a person. They're just...” I lose the sentence because there are so many words that collide.

“So it is...?” Jody asks.

“I haven't seen it—them. I just...I just saw the bodies,” I can feel fifteen years of being clean trying to scratch it's way off around behind my ears and across my scalp because of those poor fucked up kids. I keep my hands tight around my coffee cup because the bastard is not going to knock me off the wagon and I'm not going to start scratching like he has, “I don't think there'd be anything else that could do that to a...to a kid so quickly, and not with...saliva being involved.”

Keesha clutches at the necklace she's wearing and at the edge of the table and then looks at her sister accusingly, “What have you brought on us?”

“Now,” I say, “I don't know that it's even coming after any of us. It might not be the same person even so it might not know us at all. It's horrible, but the two families it's attacked they're involved in—have you been shady dealing with financial firms based in New Orleans or Baton Rouge? Or done anything with Noah Hartleypool lately?”

There are head shakes and looks of confusion.

“And they sent this thing after _kids_?” Jody adds in a hushed voice, “That's...”

“Yeah,” I say, “It is...but that's who has been dying.”

“But what if it finds out you guys are here and comes after us anyway,” Keesha says, shakily, “You said yourselves you hit them with your car and might not necessarily have killed them. They're killing _children_ I don't somehow think revenge is above their morals.”

“There's no proof it's the same...person, right?” Gavin says.

“There's no proof it _isn't_ either!” Keesha retorts, “and these things—from what you’ve said are families. There's a chance I'll get Jody's weird light thing this could be a kid or brother or sister out doing this who gets all “ooh there's the people who killed my parent, uncle, sibling.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Gavin says.

“I really don't know...” I answer, “I was half hoping you'd seen or heard something, that was when I saw you,” I point to Gavin, “and had no idea you'd settled down and had family. If you had dealings, and had information we could track things down and sort things out once and for all.”

“What _exactly_ does it do?” Keesha asks, hesitantly, “You guys have said bits and pieces through the years but then you've also said, you were probably wrong, you were probably over-reacting, there were _substances_ that were taken around and about maybe it screwed with your memory...”

It's Jody who finally speaks up, “It grabs you with this...sticky tongue...thing. It pulls your skin off, rips it just...” she shudders, “but it also pulled people, broke them, and that noise...”

Gavin pulls her close to him, sliding his chair towards hers, but he looks like he wants the contact just as much.

She looks over at me, “You remember it, don't you?”

“As soon as I...saw the...body...” I’m so glad they’re not asking exactly how that was a thing. I put the coffee cup down, “It was just ringing through my head.”

“Shit,” Gavin mutters, “No going back on the whole thing, huh?”

“You're the one whose ankle it—”

“I know!” he snaps, “Sorry,” he shakes his head, “I'm just—hey, why were _you_ seeing the bodies anyway?” he adds, after a moment, “You're the bar guy, not working at the morgue.”

Well, spoke too soon. Fuck knotting myself up and lying about this. It's already too deep, “I'm roped into some crap with Detective Wuornos, and he called it in on this, which was wonderful of him.”

Gavin nods.

“But it's not like he knew,” I point out, “He just wanted more help because dead kid...s.”

Keesha gets up and goes into the other room where Devin went. I start to apologize.

“It's not your fault,” Jody says, “Apparently we have someone else to blame for bringing him—it--up here.”

“Yeah...” I nod, doesn't make me feel much better, “and if you haven't had any dealings with Jim Warton or Hartleypool I mentioned before. Then hopefully you're off his radar...”

“What if we wanted to be?” Jody asks, “On it...help get it put away—it doesn't need to be out here or out in the world.”

“It doesn't need to be anywhere,” Gavin says, leaning around as some noise is coming from the other room.

“Everything alright?” Jody calls.

“Hold on--” Keesha calls back and there's some sort of scuffling and low talking.

“I can get out of here--” I tell them.

“No,” Gavin gets up, “It's probably just some minor thing with the kids and Jody's got a point being able to help would be something.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and start to look for Nathan's number, “I'll see if there's anything that can be sorted out,” and how exactly I can explain this to Nathan, without ratting anything too much about them because it's not Nathan's business or should I call Audrey? She's the one who called me in the first place but she's more likely to pry.

My finger is about to press Nathan's name when there's a loud exclamation from behind me, that makes me turn ready to act, but it's followed by Charlotte who I can now see part of going, “I'm sorry! I'm sorry! This is why I haven't said anything!”

“How long have you known?”

“A couple of weeks...”

“Do his—do _your_ parents know?” Gavin's question is directed off in another direction as I move I can see Keesha is back with a teen maybe two years older than Charlotte at most, standing like a protective barrier.

“No, sir,” he says.

I need to get out of here.

“But protection—the pill—we could hav--” Jody is saying, as I carefully approach her and make my excuses considering the bad time that this is, “We still want to help,” she says, “Even more so now.”

“Alright, well, I'll head out for a bit and talk to, you know who, and we can meet a bit later once you guys have had time to process without non-family about.”

Jody gets a strange look for a moment, and I can't help but give her a questioning one in return, “I'll explain later,” she says, “but okay, how will we?”

“Just call The Gull, ask for Shelley or Julia if I'm not there yet and they'll make sure I get the message.”

“Okay,” there's a quick and slightly awkward hug, and I wave into the crowd.

“Nice to meet everyone.”

“You too!” is returned from Keesha, the two teens are decidedly and expectedly quiet.


	7. "Family" Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plan of action is found.

I drive down the road a little way and pull off into a small lay-by by a gate that goes into a field before I actually call Nathan.

“You have something?” he asks.

“Possibly.”

“How so?”

“Well, they're not involved, but...they've...dealt with this before,” I find myself pinching my nose because that was so not smooth.

“What?” he asks.

“One of the trees I shook it brought him out because it was familiar, and he and his...” are they married? “wife have kids and they want to help. Is that enough for you?” and now you sound super defensive, way to go Crocker. I lean my head on the steering wheel and massage it around.

Nathan doesn't say anything for a moment.

“Sorry,” I tell him sitting back up and leaning against the seat.

“Everyone's on edge about this,” he returns.

“Yeah,” I say, “anyway, they know how...screwed up this thing is so they want to help stop it,” stop fucking with your arm, “I said I'd talk with you and see what you were wanting to, I don't know, sanction?”

There's the vaguest sound of a laugh, “More than half the things we do when it comes to the Troubles aren't exactly sanctioned,” I can hear Audrey in the background.

“You have a point.”

“We're finishing up something here—,” he continues, “we can head to The Gull after. I'll text you when we're on the way.”

“Sounds good. I'll be in the back where we have the usuals,” I can almost hear him nod.

$$$$$

I park at The Gull and stop at the main bar where Shelley is talking to one of the waitresses about an order mix-up and how it's not her fault if the customer changes their mind on something but she still has to be polite about it anyway because now it has to be comped, and before we could probably still have charged them for it and if she does something like that again she can choose if it comes out of her tips or check.

“Boss--” Shelley says as the waitress disappears to get the re-fire of a different temperature burger for said customer, “--you're back. For the rest of the night or not?”

“Don't know at this point,” I admit, “going to be having a meeting in the back. You know the sort. The guy from before will probably be calling or his wife, Jody, or they might just show up, send them back there, and Officers Parker and Wuornos will be here eventually.”

She pulls a face mostly worry and awkward than anything else, “You want me to switch,” she waves between the bar on the upper deck and the area she's at now, “and actually tend?”

“Who's up there? And how many customers do we have?”

“Todd and I don't think anyone's been seated up there in the past bit, so one table front corner.”

“Okay, stay here for right now and make sure no one else gets up there. I'll just take over for now.”

She nods, “and when they show up bring them on back and set up shop?”

“This is why I like you.”

She laughs.

I go through and up the short rise of steps into the back area that we sometimes cordon off for private parties when the outside deck is not viable, and shoo the guy working there. Owner privilege to reassign people as I see fit. I send him on break and tell him to have Shelley find him something to do out front for the time being when he comes back. Then I pour myself a double of a semi decent whiskey and down it. The small table looks to mostly be drinking sodas, just one person with a draft beer that they're clearly nursing and the register says it's their second. I am silently willing them to get their asses wherever they're going given they're not locals and I don't want to rush them out. Maybe my feelings are wending their way across to them though despite the fact I'm focusing on cleaning the bar top because I notice the guy draining the remainder of the beer in his glass and coming up with the check to pay.

“Where's the other guy?” he asks.

“He went on break,” I tell them, “Was everything okay?”

“No, everything was great. I just want to make sure he gets his tips and--”

“He will. I assure you,” I offer a smile, “I'm the owner. I don't take tips—though it is better for the staff if you can leave them in cash,” I swipe his card, “Would anyone like any non-alcoholic beverages to go?” I wind up giving their kids each drinks and clipping a cash tip to the receipt and they're thankfully on their way. I give the money to Shelley for Todd and am just back in the other room and about to clear off the table when she transfers a call back there for me.

“Jody. How are things over there?”

“Fire's dampened for now. What about your end?”

“Head down here whenever you're ready, I guess. I haven't heard back again from Wuornos and his partner, but he said once they had the lead they're sorting out finished up they'd be over here.”

“We'll see you soon then,” and she hangs up.

$$$$$

Jody and Gavin arrive before I've received any word from Nathan. Shelley shows them into the back and takes station behind the bar. Gavin's already seen the place, sort of, but Jody's definitely giving it a once over.

“Respectable business man,” she says, as I pop the caps off two bottles of beer that Shelley hands over the bar for them as she goes to sit at one of the larger round tables, “No wonder no one's shooting at you. Gavin didn't tell me you owned the place.”

“I didn't know. I just got told I'd find him here. I figured he had some sort of odd job fixing things or something.” Gavin takes the bottles and sits down with his...are they actually married? I never asked.

“I got tricked into it,” I tell them, as I sit down with the bottle from earlier and the shot glass and set my phone on the table to keep an eye on it, “I didn't intend to be a bar owner, but that's a story for another time.”

“Sounds like it'd be a nice distracting one,” Jody remarks.

I shake my head, “It involves Troubles and death.”

“Fucking Haven,” Gavin mutters, swallowing a good half of the beer in his bottle.

“Yeah,” I pour myself a shot, and down it.

“And now _that_ bastard might be here,” Jody says, shaking her head.

“We'll sort it,” I point out, watching my hand as I turn the shot glass around on the table. My phone vibrates on the table and I pick it up. Nathan saying they're wrapping up. <Here already> I answer and drop the phone back down, “They're on their way.”

Gavin makes a grunt of acknowledgment.

“What have you told them about us?” Jody asks.

“When I was dropping hints around about to see who had connections to Hartleypool and everything you got in touch because it sounded familiar and it turned out to be something you'd dealt with before and you want to help stop it anyway you can.”

She nods, “Well, it's true enough, so they don’t know that you were there?”

I shake my head.

“And you’d prefer to keep it that way?” Gavin adds.

“Please.”

“And hey some good things came out of the whole mess at least, eh?” she looks over at Gavin.

He gives a slight smirk, “There is that.”

“What happened to you after?” she asks me, “I mean we went off and shacked up,” Okay, so that’s a mark in favor of married, “what did you do?”

I have to snort given the phrasing, and shake my head, “A variety of substances, a variety of girls...” I pour myself another shot, “then just one drug for a while...” I take the shot, “...but thankfully I got clean then it was back to other sometimes slightly dodgy activities,” I quirk a smile, “and being as far away from here as possible.”

“But you're here now,” Jody says.

“So are you,” I point at her with the hand holding the shot glass, “Everyone gets dragged back here eventually. So are you just shacked up or officially official?”

“We made it officially official a few years after Charlotte was born given things were still working out,” Gavin says.

“Well done,” I tell them, “I'm happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Jody laughs, “and you know what else,” she says, as I see Nathan and Audrey coming into the back, “there's a good chance Charlotte was actually conceived on the _Ursa_ before you dropped us off in Tallahassee on the way back from New Orleans.”

I shake my head, “Well, there's that I guess,” boats and baby conceptions, let's not go there right now. Nathan hovers, and I wave him down, “Nathan, Audrey, this is Gavin and Jody.”

Shelley appears to ask them if they want anything to drink considering they're on duty and obviously aren't going to be having beers or anything, and says she's told the kitchen to just do us up a half order of all the appetizers and that'll be out in just a moment when she brings the cops their beverages.

Audrey sits between Nathan and I looking at Gavin and Jody with interest. Nathan, of course, is his usual straight-faced self might as well be a statue. Gavin frowns at him. Jody has put up the 'I sure am a helpful sweetheart' demeanor which is similar to the one she was wearing when we knocked on the guy's door to ask for car help _that_ night.

“So,” Nathan says, once Shelley has brought them a tea and a water respectively, and set down the platter, plates and napkins and graciously made her exit, “Duke says you might have some idea what we're dealing with.”

“Especially with the extra information we've been bouncing around it does sound unfortunately similar to something we had a run in with back...in the nineties,” Jody fills in.

Gavin stretches his leg out shifting the position of his chair and cautiously takes one of the plates and begins to get a few of the different things from the platter.

“But--” Audrey turns to Nathan and then to me, “the Troubles weren't around then.”

“The Troubles weren't around in _Haven_ then,” I point out, “this was in New Orleans. _We_ already talked about that,” I wave a hand between Audrey and myself.

Gavin makes a noise of confirmation around a chicken wing.

“There are still people with Troubles running around in the rest of the world...” Jody says, “even when it's calm in Haven, that's why we come back here if...something happens. That's why this place is so important...at least when it’s working,” she shakes her head, “Anyway, it wasn't going after children then though, which is, I mean we'd want to help anyway, but it's got us _super_ motivated.”

“Yeah, it just screwed up a job we were doing,” Gavin says, “Got part of my leg,” he pulls up the pants on his right leg to show them. Given he's wearing ankle socks the ten inch strip of scarring is visible, and the muscle fibers can be seen rippling under what little skin grew back.

Audrey lets out a slight yip-gasp of horror the best she can stifle, and Nathan grimaces setting his glass down.

“If Jody hadn't stomped on it's...what did we decide it was? Proboscis?” he shakes his head, “Tongue? I don't know—anyway, I wouldn't be here now. It took the skin when it let me go but...other people on the job weren’t so lucky.”

“Well, it's had a lot of time to practice since,” I point out, over my shot glass.

“There's still a person in there,” Audrey whispers, “Not an it...”

“You weren't there!” Jody snaps, and then takes a deep breath, “I don't want to think of what happened as something any _person_ is capable of doing, the tongue thing that comes out of it's head, and the screech-laugh sound it makes when it's...” she gestures the ripping. I guess there's been some changes in conversation and stance since earlier, “coming off in strips, and if they were lucky it just snapped their necks with—instead of just...”

Gavin takes hold of her hands, but she pulls away to take the bottle from me and with an eye gesture asks for the shot glass which I offer to her and she takes one. Gavin declines. I take an egg roll. I should eat something.

Audrey nods after a moment, perhaps thinking back on the two under ten year olds that Gloria has in the morgue, “You do have a point, and I'm so _so_ sorry. I can't...I have _no_ words.”

“It needs to stop,” Gavin says, “It needs to _be_ stopped. So, whatever we can do. We will.”

“Okay, then,” Nathan says, “We found out from one of the...bereaved parents that there are things going on with outfits in Louisiana as you may have suspected given your history with...the Trouble,” he picks up and then sets down a piece of quesadilla, “Another has had threats made against their family when they tried to get out of a different arrangement.”

“But you don't expect threats to go straight to children,” Audrey puts in, “No one does...which has me wondering why.”

She does have a point there. I can't say it wasn't going after kids when we last met it. Maybe it would have if there were kids with us, but there weren't...well, there wasn't anyone younger than seventeen, I would say. Is Gavin the youngest out of the three of us?

“Anyway,” Nathan continues, “Hartleypool arranged to turn in what he was supposed to to their 'local representative' tonight before they could go after anyone else. We have the location of the drop off that he was given. He said he wouldn't go unless he was allowed to bring along someone for protection that's where one of you comes in considering I'm told I scream cop no matter what I do,” he gives me a look.

“You do,” I tell him.

“You really do,” Jody agrees.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

“Don't thank me,” she says, “I was going to add, that other people,” she points at me with the remains of a chicken wing, “probably can't look respectable if they try.”

Audrey attempts to hide a laugh behind her glass of tea but fails miserably.

“Not that I've ever seen you cleaned up, considering we last saw each other when we weren't even twenty, but can you clean up?”

“No,” Nathan says, “He can't.”

I start to protest but...damn it.

“Do you own a suit?” he returns, and then puts a hand up, “Or dress clothes of some sort? Recall I have seen you at court hearings.”

“So, who is going with Hartleypool and who is hiding out and pretending not to be there?” I ask instead.

  



	8. Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duke and the rest of the gang meet with the skinflayer and resolve the situation.

I'm the one who winds up sitting with Hartleypool. It turns out he's younger than Nathan and I, so, would have come through school after I was more of a ghost on campus than anything else, but I do remember the chant so there must have been something. His wife is from north of Derry so she's even less known and this has been her oh so awesome introduction to the Troubles considering they're easy to write off for outsiders until they're happening to you.

He has a small bag with money in it and a USB drive which he has rested on his lap as he sits on the bench and I lean against the nearby tree watching as many angles as I can. Suspicion, thy name is Crocker. He looks as though he has things he wants to ask but doesn't. Instead he periodically checks his phone and looks around, and checks his phone again.

“Are you expecting a message or trying to make time go faster?” I ask him after at least the sixth phone check.

He sheepishly puts the phone back away, “It's not like I've _done_ this before, man,” he says, “do you get updates? Are they gonna?”

“You look nervous, and skittish. Calm the hell down.”

“Easy for you to say,” he retorts, “This thing is terri--”

“I'm aware,” I hiss, “as was discussed _earlier_ I have seen what it can do. I'm also saying you keep being jittery like that and I might think you have something _else_ going on, and you don't want me thinking that, do you? Then you have an issue on two fronts,” hopefully he's not going to be too much of an idiot to get what I'm actually meaning. I understand he's fucking terrified but knowing anyone who is anyone they're probably already here and scouting, listening to the conversation, gotta put on character from the get go, especially this crazy fucking thing. I wonder if they—it recognizes people by scent. Does it know I've been around before?

“I'm not going to screw you over,” he says, stiffening, “You guard me. You get the rest of your pay, as long as nothing happens to _me_ of course.”

“Of course,” I retort. Well done, enough. Someone else might have put a Crocker family jibe in there, but whatever. It works for purposes, and there's someone or something approaching anyway. I turn and put my hand up towards him. I didn't bother with a gun I knew being close to him would likely put me too close to anything this thing had for it to be worthwhile, and with how shaky I might get about it wouldn't be the best anyway, so it's just blades on me, besides we've got two cops with no fucked up history with this thing with more than enough fire power _and_ distance. Jody and Gavin are off and about anyway too. I'm not sure which of them wound up in charge of vehicle, and another is off somewhere with one of the cops.

Left hand with knife blade, of course, and other hand still telling him to stay put and be quiet. I do a quick look around and then step slightly closer to him but also closer to the direction of the noise. You can do this Crocker, you're a grown ass man, “Show yourself.”

Fuck.

It's like part of the bushes and tree on the other side melt into a person-like figure. Hartleypool almost falls over himself standing up to take a place next to me. On the upside that makes me look completely cool and calm. Well, no doubt about it now given I think we neglected to mention that little part of it's repertoire to the group back at The Gull. Maybe my brain had just forgotten about it til now. It looks...mostly like a person, though the...eyes are just...not right, and the mouth is way too wide, and I just...can't bring myself to really focus on the face properly for too long.

It puts an arm out towards us in the classic 'hand things over' gesture.

I slowly back Hartley away from it so the bench is between the two of them, and the bag between the two of us, “What guarantee does my client have that after this nothing more will happen to his family or his associate's family?”

“Bag!” the voice is mushy and distorted, but then the mouth is...mushy and distorted, but it's either bag or back, and bag is what makes the most sense given hand gesture...no.

Mostly this is just a stalling thing until we have 100% proof. It just needs to be a little more impatient and then hopefully it'll try and go for the bag and not either of our heads. Don't think about that.

“Answer the question!” Hartleypool says from around my right shoulder, “Did _you_ do that to Jackie? I want to know that's not going to happen to my wife or my daughter!”

It cocks it's head to the side and could almost be grinning at him, but it's mouth opens so wide it's hard to really say what expression there is. I'm leery that it might just disappear again to fuck with us and try to take the bag that way, but there's that keening noise it likes to do that hopefully it'll give itself away with and I won't lose my shit over. Please.

“Baaag!” Then it lolls out of it's mouth rather than unfurling or flicking out which is something, and only a few inches, maybe half a foot and just to the side, the long fat tongue.

Hartleypool flinches gripping my free arm.

“I guess you're just going to have to give it to him,” I mutter with a nod.

He makes a strange noise of his own but then, “Okay,” and hurls the bag as best he can away from us, vaguely in the direction that the others are supposed to be. He's not exactly a baseball pitcher though, not that it really matters when the 'person' you're throwing something away from has an extendable sticky tongue.

The tongue whips out in front of us at least five feet and connects around the bag. I half feel it's counter productive because surely it'll rip the bag open spilling the contents considering that's what it does but it curls up the tongue to keep the bag inside.

From the left a squealing noise but not the creepy keening laugh it's tires and brakes. A vehicle wheels around and then speeds up and slams into the—I can't call it chameleon that's the thing that was on the island where Julia's, where Eleanor died—skinflayer—I said that earlier didn’t I? That works, knocking it a good twenty feet away and air bags deploy in the car so Gavin struggles to clamber out triumphantly.

“Remember us, mother fucker?” he demands as it leaps back to it's feet now making the keening sound the bag dropping to the ground, tongue flipping up from the ground.

Audrey and Nathan burst out from the bushes on the other side guns drawn, demanding it stand down or they'll shoot. Jody is behind them and moving around to my right. It's eyes are doing the weird rolling thing which makes me wonder how it's not throwing up, and it starts to curl up the tongue again.

“That's enough,” Nathan says, “Just stay right there. Kneel down! Put your hands behind your head!”

“And put the tongue away!” Audrey finishes.

Now the head sort of roll turns towards her, the tongue is curling up towards the mouth, but it's not putting it away. I know it. Gavin knows it. I'm sure Jody knows it too. That keening chittering almost laugh starts as it is flicking the tongue out and I'm throwing myself at it and I know I hit into it mostly from the softer thing that separates me from the ground than anything else.

I'm not sure what's going on elsewhere. I don't hear screaming pain from behind so it must not have hit Audrey. If it got Nathan though he wouldn't feel it so it could well have him and I wouldn't know but I have it now, and the blind thought is that if it doesn't have it's tongue it can't keep doing this and I do have a knife.

“Duke! Duke!” Audrey's voice jars me, as someone pulls me from behind, and away from the skinflayer. I can make out a bloody mess of tongue but I think it's still partly attached and Nathan and Gavin are wrangling limbs into place to handcuff. It shrieks and I can't help but grip at my head wanting the noise to not be in there. I can feel Audrey close by and brace myself against her and something else solid, the bench, maybe? To pull up.

“No!” I hear Jody's voice, “No! Don't you dare!”

There's something bright, brilliant, hot, such heat more than being near a campfire or something else and I daren't open my eyes in that direction, and Audrey leaves me, cautiously, murmuring reassurance and squeezing my arm, and is calling to Jody, telling her it's okay, that she can let go, that it'll be alright. Gavin's voice too, and the heat subsides, and when I put down the arm I didn't realize I'd raised and look over there's a smoking hole in the chest of the skinflayer and it's head lolls limp and it's thick tongue is cut through but the stab wounds were too haphazard to really cut in any substance. I can feel myself shaking.

Jody clings to Gavin and sobs. Hartleypool stands there for a moment before hesitantly picking up the bag of his and sidling away. Nathan starts to say something and then apparently decides fuck it. I sit down on the bench. Audrey sits by me and puts her hand over mine and squeezes it softly but doesn't say anything. The thing is dead. I want to laugh. I also want to see and yet don't want to see if at some point it starts shifting back into a person instead of that weird looking...don't turn back that way.

“Oh, my God,” Gavin murmurs, “it’s a woman.”

Shit. Thanks. Just what I wanted to hear.

“Let's just get back to The Gull, and the Police Department,” Nathan says, “The rest of the crime scene people will be here. You guys go back to The Gull,” he says to Jody and Gavin, and then nods to me, “and we'll follow up in a little while.”

I nod.

I hear Audrey asking Nathan something about Hartleypool as she goes over to him and there's something about the fact there's uniforms at his house. Gavin is cutting the airbag off the steering wheel and Jody is telling him they could get the car seen to and that he shouldn't do that and he's all whatever I just don't care at this point.

“Fine. Fine,” she says, “but you'll be complaining when we get the repair bill.”

“I don't think the car insurance covers Acts of Trouble,” she finishes.

“It really should in this town. Don't you think, Duke?”

“Sure.”

I lay down in the back of the car for the few minutes it takes us to get back to the bar, and then slide myself out.

“We'll head home,” Jody says, “Thanks for--”

“No, thank you, and hold on.”

I go in to the lower bar and hand over some cash and ask them to give me one of the bottles from behind the bar. The bartender looks confused.

“Don't you own the place? Isn't it your--?”

“I'm giving it to someone. It's easier on the books if I just buy it, just put it in. Put the change in the tips.” I'll have enough alcohol to pay off in the morning from tonight I'm sure, and earlier this afternoon because fuck if I'm not drinking more.

Jody and Gavin have actually waited, and the window is lowered down, and I hand over the bottle of scotch. She looks at me and then shows it to Gavin.

“Congratulations or commiserations depending on what goes on with the family stuff,” I tell them, with slight sheepishness, “and well, fuck we survived again.”

“That we did,” Gavin says, “and my legs in good shape this time. So, there's that,” he gives a vague laugh.

Jody sets the bottle carefully in her lap before she punches him in the arm.

“Thanks,” she says, “for letting us help.”

“Thank you for helping,” I answer, “It's—it's done with.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“If you guys need anything. Anything. Ever. You know where I am.”

She nods, “We're going to get back before Keesha thinks something bad has happened,” there's a slight laugh again from Gavin, and I back away, patting the top of the car as I do, and watch them drive off before heading to the _Cape_ to shower, change and head back to The Gull to meet Audrey and Nathan in the back. Though I'm sure there'll be at least a few shots of the good stuff first.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the first story in this universe that I posted (even though really it's in the sort of middle of the series, but continuity eh).   
> I hope you liked it. I'll be posting more from the series (as you can probably tell by me posting "Return of the Wench" and all. As a warning, or a pledge? some of the ones after this one will be decidedly more smutty.


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